


But now men go to preach with jests and jeers

by apprenticenanoswarm



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Gun Violence, Castiel's True Form (Supernatural), Crowley with no vessel and no fucks left to give, Crowley's True Form (Supernatural), Distinguished gay in love with disaster bisexuals, Fix-It, M/M, by god dean winchester will have nice things, castiel IS heaven, crowstiel, dean and cas are That Couple, heaven is weird, size diff kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:00:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28265061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apprenticenanoswarm/pseuds/apprenticenanoswarm
Summary: In which Crowley thinks sad endings are boring, and Crowley does not like to be bored. Post-finale fix-it fic.(Now with Chapter 2: In which Crowley decides he doesn’t like happy endings either.)
Relationships: Castiel/Crowley (Supernatural), Castiel/Crowley/Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Crowley (Supernatural)/Dean Winchester
Comments: 18
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

Dean was taking Baby for a spin along the edge of a mountain, the wind blowing through his hair and the sunlight glinting off his firm, fixed smile. He’d been driving for a long time now. How long? It didn’t matter. Everything was fine. The air was fresh, the view was stunning. No rush, no need to be anywhere, nothing to get done. Freedom and peace, at long last.

“Fuck _me_. Honestly, I would rather snip off my bollocks, sauté them in butter, and eat them with a side of canned mushrooms than watch another minute of this,” muttered a thin, scratchy voice that no one would have mistaken for the product of human vocal cords.

The mountain watched as, a mile below, Dean drove up the side of its folded left leg and sighed heavily. It had been doing that a lot, lately.

“He’s _right there_ ,” the voice hissed. “Just _talk_ to him.”

Speaking directly into its companion’s mind, for its own voice would have blown Baby a hundred miles away, the mountain said, “It’s better this way. He’s happy.”

Seated on the mountain’s craggy shoulder, a creature roughly the size of a cat shook its horned head. “He’s not happy. He’s given up.”

“There’s a sort of happiness in that.”

Crowley harrumphed, stood up, and started scratching viciously at Castiel’s lichen-covered earlobe with his claws. Given that said earlobe was almost twice as big as he was, the gesture didn’t achieve much, but hopefully it went some way to conveying his frustration. “Angel. Enough. The two of you are literally ruining Paradise for me with your miserable moping.”

Tree trunks snapped and boulders were shaken loose as Castiel turned his head and narrowed his eyes at his companion. “I do apologise, demon. Obviously, I built it solely to keep you entertained.”

Folding his arms, tail twitching, Crowley growled, “I mean, to be fair, if you _had_ , there’d at least be a place to buy dildos.”

“Not this again.”

“Remembers to include shit beer and abusive fathers. Forgets dildos. Bloody typical. This is what happens when the most boring man alive and a literal child are tasked with throwing a party.”

“I’ve told you: You are welcome to will your own dildos into being. I just don’t see why Heaven has to supply them directly.”

“That’s because you’ve never understood the joys of browsing, Cas.”

“I will not introduce capitalism into Heaven just so that you can shop for dildos, Crowley.”

“You would if _he_ asked you to,” the demon said sourly, watching Baby make her way around Castiel’s knee.

“He wouldn’t ask me to.”

“And that, my friend, is the entire problem. Right, fuck this. Had enough. Sorting it out myself.”

A hurricane rolled down the rocky slopes as Castiel gasped, “Crowley, no!”

But he was gone.

0

Dean Winchester had, in fact, been driving for seventeen years since his untimely death and would probably have kept going indefinitely had a cat-sized creature with utterly inhuman features not materialised on Baby’s bonnet, winked, and said, “Hey there, sexy.”

Two facts:

  1. Car crashes did not exist in Heaven. In situations where no other outcome was foreseeable, divine intervention would cause all obstacles to move out of the vehicle’s way and allow it to coast gently to a halt.
  2. Dean didn’t know that yet.



“The fuck,” he intoned, staring at the three trees that had just teleported several feet to the left.

“Jumpy, are we,” said Crowley, now seated next to him. “That’s odd. I’d have thought you’d be a model of serenity and mental health. Because everything’s fine now and you’ve got everything you ever wanted. Don’t you?”

Two facts:

  1. Castiel hadn’t wanted guns to exist in Heaven any more than car crashes and capitalism. But he’d been forced to admit that his beloved was totally incapable of relaxing for so much as three minutes if he wasn’t surrounded by loaded firearms.
  2. Crowley didn’t know that yet.



“The _fuck_ ,” he rasped, staring down at the new hole in his torso.

“Who are you?” Dean snarled, shoving the barrel under his chin.

“The only man who’s ever had your unworthy prick in his mouth, you absolute lemon.”

Dean lowered the gun, blinking. “Crowley? You… uh… you look different. Tinier.”

“Yeah, well,” the demon grunted as, with a series of gruesome slurping noises, the wound healed itself. “No vessels here. No secrets or shame. Everyone looks the way they really look, and everyone can look at everyone else without getting their eyeballs burned out. Speaking of which, is there any particular reason you haven’t prayed to Castiel yet?”

Bam. Total shutdown, as he’d expected.

“Because he’s here,” Crowley went on, inspecting his manicured claws. “I believe you were made aware of that fact some time ago.”

“Yeah. I heard. It… wait. Holy shit. You’re not wearing a suit.”

Crowley considered his own body. “Gonna be honest, Squirrel, I’d have thought the scales would be the first thing you’d notice.”

“You’re wearing a short-sleeved shirt,” Dean breathed, goggling at him like he was the world’s last miracle. “A floral fucking short-sleeved shirt. And shorts. And flip-flops. What in _shit_ is _happening_?”

“I’m on vacation. Obviously. Now stop trying to change the subject. Castiel. You haven’t made even one attempt to get in touch. Why?”

Calloused fingers drummed on the steering wheel. “Figured he’d be busy.”

Cackling, Crowley said, “Oh, that’s rich. Like you’ve ever given a toss for anyone’s schedule but your own. You used to summon that poor bastard when he was in the middle of a war. You used to summon me when I was an actual bloody king doing actual bloody king things. ‘Busy’. You cowardly cunt, Squirrel.”

Dean flinched. Worrying, that. Crowley had been hoping for a punch. “Have… have you spoken to him lately?”

“I have.”

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s great. He’s terrific. He’s completely abandoned his social support network and hobbies, never goes anywhere or does anything that doesn’t involve plaintively staring at you from a distance like a weird alpine stalker, and can only be dragged into conversation via threats of physical violence. Absolutely fine and dandy.”

Oh, that furrowed brow. How Crowley wanted to kick it. Or possibly lick it. “So he’s unhappy?”

“Yes, Dean,” said Crowley, patiently, tail twitching. “Your angel is very, very unhappy.”

A manly, decisive nod. “Right. Well, we’d better go check up on him.”

As Dean turned the car around, Crowley patted himself on the back and wondered if they’d let him perv on the reunion sex if he asked nicely.

“Huh. That’s weird,” Dean mumbled, peering ahead. “Could have sworn there was a mountain there a moment ago.”

Crowley processed the altered landscape before breathing in, breathing out, and putting his fist through the windscreen. 

0

It took Crowley a week to track Castiel down, during which time Dean followed him around like a lost puppy and even asked how he’d been doing. They talked. They discussed all the things that bugged them about Heaven (Dean’s list, it turned out, was almost as long as his own). Dean made endless cracks about Crowley’s size and how he could now lift Crowley in one hand and juggle him, and Crowley bit his ear until he screamed and bled and apologised.

All very nostalgic. And… nice. Irritatingly nice. If Crowley wasn’t over him – _and he was, dammit_ – it might have been tempting to give it another go.

But Crowley hadn’t survived as long as he had by putting any store by wishful thinking.

“Finally,” he said, addressing the wide, peaceful lake to which Dean had driven them, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his shorts. “Do you have any idea what a pain in my arse you are?”

The lake grew eyes and squinted sadly at him.

“No,” Crowley snapped. “Don’t try and guilt trip me. I’m not in the mood.”

“Cas?” Dean whispered, dropping to his knees at the water’s edge.

Soft and deep and wet: “Hello, Dean.”

From there, things got soppy, and Crowley amused himself by throwing small stones at fish. When three hours had passed and they were still talking, and it had become clear that they weren’t going to start frantically rutting or pay any attention to him, he rolled his eyes and wandered off.

0

He found himself an undeveloped corner of Heaven to sulk in and spent several years doing so. Eventually, inevitably, he grew bored, pulled himself together, and started constructing Heaven’s first dildo shop.

To his surprise, his first customer was Castiel, human-shaped again – presumably so he could fit through the door – and smiling broadly. “Hello, Crowley.”

“Go back to being colossal. You were sexier that way,” Crowley said tersely, busy arranging his wares on the shelves in neat rows to show off their colourful bumps and nobs and ridges to best effect.

“I came to say thank you.”

Crowley looked at his face, at his cosmically blue eyes, and reminded himself that he was _also supposed to be over bloody Castiel dammit dammit dammit_. “I take it Squirrel’s been making up for ten years of missed opportunities?”

“For the first two days after you reunited us, we did little but weep and embrace one another. Since then, we have been copulating almost without cease,” Castiel reported.

Ah, the sting of bitterness. Hello, old friend. “Good for you. Now kindly piss off, I’m trying to get this place off the ground and my products are specifically marketed towards interesting people.”

Castiel lifted a particularly spikey little number and studied it. “Dean would like you to come to dinner tonight.”

“Dinner? What makes you think I’ve got time to waste playing happy families with you and the Deicide Squad?”

(Sam had arrived in Heaven a decade ago. Dean had thrown a party. It had, apparently, been the stuff of legend; everyone who’d ever allied themselves with the Winchesters had attended, as had a fair few of their enemies. Crowley had received a handwritten invitation, which he had abruptly turned into an origami penis with dainty angel wings and attached to the ceiling light, where it dangled merrily to this very day.)

“Sam won’t be there, actually. Just me and Dean, and, hopefully, you.”

Crowley peered beadily at him. “Want something, do you? Why can’t you just ask me now?”

An innocent blink, as though nothing but the purest intentions had ever lurked behind those baby blues. “I have no mercenary motive, Crowley. We would simply enjoy your company. However, if you require a greater incentive, I’m more than willing to make a deal.”

Little shit thought he was being sneaky, speaking Crowley’s language like that. “I’m on vacation, Feathers. Not planning to get back into the deal-making business for at least another two thousand years.”

“Surely,” said Castiel, leaning over the counter, looking earnest and endearing and utterly himself, “there’s _something_ you want, my friend.”

This was not remotely fair.

Crowley ground his teeth.

Castiel leaned back, frowning. “In case it wasn’t clear, I’m trying to seduce you.”

“I’m aware.”

“Why isn’t it working? Dean was sure it would.”

“Dean was… ? Cas, why in the name of all that’s unholy does your boyfriend want me in your pants?”

He looked baffled. Like it was obvious, like Crowley was being wilfully ignorant. “Because this – this is Heaven. Our Heaven. We can all have what we want now. We can treat each other the way we should always have treated each other.”

“Not getting to have what I want is sort of an integral aspect of my personality at this point, pet.”

Castiel seized his hands, clutched them. “Come to dinner. Please.”

Crowley swallowed thickly and grunted, “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

**_The end_ **


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crowley decides he doesn’t like happy endings either.

The house Dean Winchester had built for himself in Heaven was picturesque, assuming you were inclined to be nice. If, on the other hand, you were inclined to be Crowley, your assessment would have run more along the lines of ‘the most intolerably twee pile of saccharine cottagecore bollocks ever perpetrated against good taste’. It had a little cobblestone pathway leading through a little garden full of bluebells up to a little red door with _HOME SWEET HOME_ painted across its front in handsome cursive. There was a hearty golden-brown apple pie cooling on the windowsill. There were chickens.

“Not one fucking word,” Castiel murmured. “He’s very proud of it.”

Crowley, for his part, was proud of Castiel for finally getting the hang of swearing – only took three or four apocalypses – and obligingly refrained from commenting, even as he noticed the rosy-cheeked garden gnome.

“Wow – you actually got him here, Cas!” said Dean as the front door swung open, grinning broadly. He was wearing an apron the colour of sunflowers and there was flour all over his hands.

And he was _happy_. Stank of it.

“Your house is an abomination,” said Crowley, and pushed him out of the way.

Any hopes he’d had that the inside might be less obnoxiously cosy than the outside were swiftly dashed. They even had a dog, a big friendly dog who ran up to Crowley and started licking his face with gusto. Of course, now that he didn’t possess a vessel, and was only about two feet tall, the accursed beast knocked him right over.

“Whoa, whoa. Cut that out,” said Dean, gently pulling her back. “Sorry, man. Should have told Cas to warn you. I forgot that you’re fun-sized now.”

“Call me that again and I’ll rip out your tongue, Winchester,” he growled, eyes glowing blood-red.

The flour was the result of a batch of cookies Dean had just slid into the oven.

“Should be ready by the time we’ve finished dinner,” he said, tugging off his apron. “Also got chocolate ice-cream for dessert if you’d prefer that.”

“Dean has grown into a most adept baker,” said Castiel, gazing mawkishly at his soulmate.

_Why the fuck,_ Crowley asked himself, _am I here?_

The dinner table was set for three. At least, that had been the idea.

“Maybe if we stacked some books under you,” Castiel suggested, as Crowley tried and failed to reach his fork.

After shooting him a filthy look, Crowley climbed out of his wholly inadequate seat and perched cross-legged on the table.

“So what’ve you been up to?” said Dean in between mouthfuls of steak. “What’s a demon do in Heaven?”

Crowley pushed his carrots around the plate. “I’ve been fucking my way through a bevy of beautiful men and snorting veritable mountains of cocaine.”

“Really?”

“No. Most of the time I just stare into the middle-distance.”

“I like to do that too!” Castiel volunteered.

“Yeah, Cas,” said Dean, swigging his beer. “But when you do it, it’s because you’re getting in touch with the unfathomable forces of all creation or some shit, not because you’re plain old depressed.”

“I do get depressed sometimes. But then I look at you, Dean, and my entire being is filled with warmth and golden light.”

They gazed into one another’s eyes. Crowley stabbed at his carrots.

After dinner, Castiel half-dragged Crowley over to the couch to cuddle aggressively and watch a heist movie while Dean brought them cookies and ice-cream.

“Sooner or later, Feathers, it would be nice if you’d explain what the sodding hell I’m doing here besides bearing witness to your insufferably perfect coupledom and being a spanner in the works,” Crowley grunted as a security guard got shot, his tail twitching irritably.

“You’re here because we love you,” said Castiel, giving him a what-a-stupid-question sort of look.

“Castiel, over the course of your life you’ve made some _grievous_ errors of judgement, but that might actually be the most…”

The angel’s fingers slid under his chin and tilted his face up.

“Oh, it’s kissing time? Awesome,” said Dean, setting down a half-eaten cookie and moving to sit on Crowley’s left. “Took you long enough.”

They were both so bloody _big_ now. Dean’s warm, calloused hand stretched from one shoulder to the other and Castiel’s mouth was simply overwhelming. When he began kissing Crowley’s neck, all Crowley could think was how easy it would be for him to bite it clean it two.

It felt glorious. It felt wrong. This wasn’t for him, this love-soaked house with its comfy furniture and big friendly dog. This was the Righteous Man’s well-earned reward. The place of belonging that Castiel had always ached for. Crowley wasn’t one to consider himself unworthy of any pleasures – the best parts of his existence had been dedicated to fine food, expensive fabrics, and lazy sex in luxurious hotel rooms – but this was different. This mattered.

“Actually, boys, I need to dash,” he said, slithering out of their grasp. “Thanks for a nice evening.”

Though he was small, he was _fast_ , and he was out the door before either of them could say a word.

0

The bastards came looking for him.

Summoning didn’t work in Heaven, so Crowley managed to stay one step ahead of them for almost a month. He hid in caves and crevices and cracks in reality, for most of the afterlife was still a work in progress.

His luck ran out while he was lurking in a cornfield under a bright blue sky. As he watched a flock of geese pass overhead, a fluffy cloud drifted into his field of vision.

Ten minutes later, it had doubled in size.

Twenty minutes later, it was blocking out the sun, and Crowley wondered if he was about to be rained on.

Then the cloud pounced on him.

“Got you,” came Castiel’s voice, as Crowley was swamped in his shapeless, humid, misty mass.

No point in running, so Crowley started to burrow, claws ripping up the ground faster than any rabbit. Just before he could disappear into the dark welcoming earth, Castiel assumed his human shape and yanked him back up.

“No,” the angel said firmly, setting him down with surprising care. “We’re going to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“I don’t care. Why did you leave? You want us. You flirt with us both, incessantly. And then you _have_ us and you _leave_. Explain yourself, demon.”

Then, softer and uncertain, Castiel added: “Did we… did we do something wrong?”

Crowley avoided his gaze. “Well, what’s ‘wrong’? We’re _all_ guilty of multiple war crimes, aren’t we.”

“At dinner, Crowley. What did Dean and I do wrong at dinner?”

“Nothing, Feathers. I’m just not well-suited to it.”

“To dinner?”

“To domesticity.”

Squinting, Castiel said, “Oh. I see. Mmm. Alright.”

The earth beneath Crowley’s clawed feet cracked open.

Yelping, he fell backwards as a deafening quake such as he’d never felt on Earth made the entire landscape heave and burst like rotten fruit. The cornfield all but disintegrated around him as he plummeted.

“Castiel!” he shrieked.

Magma surged up in great vertical plumes, swallowing flowers and bees and then the whole world.

“ _Castiel_!”

Flailing, he plunged through chaos, skin blistering as lumps of lava flew past him. Everything solid was breaking up, sturdy bedrock shredded like paper. Lightning cracked. A few miserable ears of corn swirled by, caught in a hurricane.

It smelled like sulphur. It smelled like home.

Large hands clasped his, fingers linking together. “Is this better?”

He met Castiel’s earnest, inquisitive gaze, and started to laugh. “You mad prick, Feathers.”

He really shouldn’t have been able to hear either of them speak over the roar of earth and fire, but then the laws of physics rarely behaved themselves around Castiel.

“Dean’s Heaven doesn’t have to be yours,” said Castiel as they continued to drop. “Dean’s Heaven doesn’t even have to be Dean’s Heaven forever. Heaven is liquid. Heaven is mutable. Heaven is what we make.”

“I don’t know what I want to make!” Crowley wailed, squeezing his eyes shut.

Irresistibly strong, Castiel yanked him close and said into his ear, “I don’t either. Can we find out together?”

Like a meteor, they landed in an ocean of lava, destroying both their physical forms in an instant. Eventually, they surfaced, and floated together.

“Alright,” said Crowley, catching his breath. “Alright, love. You win.”

0

Whistling to himself, Dean stepped outside to give Baby a tune-up and stopped dead.

“Cas,” he said. “Why the fuck is there a planet on my lawn?”

Castiel materialised beside him, wearing his beekeeper’s outfit. “That’s Crowley’s. I’m going to make tea; would you like some?”

“Crowley has a planet.”

“Well, just a planetoid at the moment. We’re working on it.”

“Crowley has a planet that he has decided to put on _my_ lawn.”

Castiel tilted his head. “I didn’t think you’d mind. Should I ask him to put it somewhere else?”

“I mean, you know the dog’s going to piss on it.”

“Oh, Crowley won’t mind that. He likes dogs.”

Dean sighed and went over to his car. “When’s he coming round for dinner again?”

“He asked if you’d be interested in lunch tomorrow.”

“He gonna stick around for dessert this time?”

“It’s a distinct possibility.”

“Good. Hey – I love you.”

“I love you too, Dean,” said Castiel, kissing his cheek before going indoors to make tea.

**The end**


End file.
